Final Weekend Day 1- Knysna and Elephants!

For our last weekend in South Africa we left Cape Town and traveled to the far east side of the province, about 5-6 hours drive from Cape Town. This is a mild climate, very scenic region on South Africa known as the Garden Route. We spent the first two nights at a travelers’ lodge called Afro Vibe in the town of George. On our first full day (Saturday, August 7) we visited sites near the town of Knysna. In the morning we took a ferry to the Knysna Featherbed Nature Reserve, which is located in what’s called the Knysna Heads, across the estuary from the town itself. This Knysna Estuary is an inlet of the Indian Ocean with very still, peaceful waters. Some of vacation properties people have on the islands and headlands are the most expensive in all of South Africa. The area is beautiful with green forests, towering cliffs, and a view of the ocean so it’s easy to see why.

At the nature reserve, we took a tractor ride up to the top of the headlands. As we climbed higher we were able to see out across the estuary and out to the Indian Ocean. Even though it was a little foggy and cloudy that day the view was still incredibly beautiful and we stopped at one point to take pictures from an overlook platform. Once we reached the top we got out of the tractors for a mile-long hike down to where we started from. On the way we climbed up on to a rock face at the edge of the cliffs to take more pictures. Our study abroad group had come across on the ferry with another tour group of senior citizens from Texas. Up on the cliff one of them saw that several of us were wearing Michigan State clothes. She got really excited because she used to live in Michigan and her children went to MSU. She couldn’t believe that she ran into a group of MSU students halfway around the world and wanted to take our picture.

We continued our hike through a forest filled with vines, gnarly-looking trees, and strange and new plants. I felt like we were walking through an enchanted forest, kind of like when we were on the Contour Path a few weeks earlier. We also explored a huge cave down by the water’s edge. This whole place felt like somewhere you would see in an adventure story, like it belonged to another world. I loved it! Finally we followed a paved pathway back to the entrance of the reserve. Included in our admission was a buffet lunch at the reserve’s restaurant, which was located under a bunch of big, overhanging trees. We were all very hungry after our hike and stuffed ourselves with lots of delicious traditional South African food – bobotie, pickled fish, calamari, potatoes, chicken, salad, passionfruits, and malva pudding. On the ferry ride back one of the other girls in the group decided we should sing the MSU Fight Song. Using another girl’s small iPod speakers and the recording of the MSU marching band on my iPod we energetically entertained the whole boat with MSU spirit. :)

Restaurant in the trees

That afternoon we visited the Knysna Elephant Park. We wanted to ride on the elephants, but unfortunately when we got there we found out that another large group had already booked up the riding for the day. However we were still able to walk with the elephants, feed them, and take pictures with them. For about $4 we could buy a small bucket of fruits and vegetables to feed the elephants with. Out in the park they kept the elephants behind a metal barrier while we fed them. We were able to hold out pieces of food in our hands and the elephants would grab the food with their trunks and put it in their mouths. I got lots of elephant slobber on my hands but it was so much fun to have the elephants excitedly grab the food from us. We were laughing the whole time. After feeding the elephants we were allowed to go around to the other side of the barrier and walk with and pet the elephants, with supervision from the elephant trainers of course. There were three adult elephants and two babies and we got lots of pictures with them, even hugging and kissing them! Elephants are huge animals but they’re so gentle and funny. Sadly the next tour group came in much too soon and we had to leave.

We finished our day back at the travelers’ lodge where Corvell braaied chicken and sausage for us for dinner and we all hung out, played cards, tried to work on assignments, and talked about life.